10-27-2009 California:
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- You may have passed them on the streets and never even knew they were there. Sixty sex offenders -- making their way through the system and living together in a camp. It's on Topeka Street, off Ventura in Downtown Fresno ... just blocks from the Convention Center.
There are few places sex offenders can live legally. And over the last three months, this encampment has become a place of refuge. Action News started asking questions, and now the city is working to shut it down.
Along the train tracks in Downtown Fresno this is not your average homeless camp. Ankle monitors are common and parole agents pull up randomly just to check up. Some tents are even labeled to make the spontaneous visits easier. Most of the people who live here are registered sex offenders. Residents say they're presence is no secret, they are monitored constantly and not only by law enforcement.
"The city's been by. They've been around taking a look. Really haven't said anything."
One sex offender we spoke with didn't want to show his face. He's lived here since August, when state funding for housing many sex offenders ended. That's when tents started popping up by the dozens.
Another man we spoke with is one of the few who is not on probation or parole. He likes living here because it's generally quiet and residents who are monitored are required to be drug and alcohol free and tested weekly.
Miguel Lazaro said, "Most of the time I do tend to mind my own business except for the few people that I do know here other than that most of the time, I do feel pretty safe."
Police Chief Jerry Dyer, asked to speak on behalf of the city of Fresno, says he's received few if any calls for service the past several months at this encampment. Perception may be the biggest problem.
"We're there on a daily basis, they are on GPS, and the difficulty is their mere presence there does create a certain amount of fear," said Chief Dyer.
While some accuse state parole agents of recommending sex offenders camp here, Dyer admits, there are few places for them to live.
Chief Dyer said, "That's the million dollar question is where do these individuals go? Unfortunately the more you move them, the more opportunity they have to reoffend."
Many of these sex offenders say they'd like to live elsewhere, but since Jessica's Law went into effect, it prevents them from living within two-thousand feet from any school, park or place where children frequent.
Some sex offenders themselves say they know people will fear them. They have not been looking forward to the day the public finds out they are living close, congregated, and blending in ... in plain sight.
"The public does have a right to what's going on around them. Who is living next door they have a right to know that, of course they do. But do I have to suffer for the rest of my life for it and live under a bridge?"
The police chief says he has gotten at least one complaint from a business owner who caught wind of his neighbors and was not happy.
Many of these sex offenders told me they had previously been living along Motel Drive and in halfway houses until those huge budget cuts left them homeless. ..Source.. by Sontaya Rose
October 27, 2009
CA- Sex Offender Sanctuary under a Fresno Bridge
August 20, 2009
FL- Creators of Tuttle problem can fix it -- now
8-20-2009 Florida:
Plenty of talk out there lately. Speeches. Promises. Threats. Sound bites on the evening news. Lots of stuff about solving the Julia Tuttle Causeway conundrum.
The Tuttle conundrum, you might have noticed, has not gone away.
Talk hasn't done a damn thing about putting sex offenders into actual housing. They're still forced to live like vagabonds in the middle of Biscayne Bay. ``I'm still here,'' Rene Mora observed from beneath the causeway Wednesday afternoon.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement classifies Rene Matamoros Mora as ``transient,'' an odd designation for someone who, at the state's insistence, has resided at the same wretched address for more than two years. ``I can't go anywhere else. It's those residency restrictions.''
Of course, you'd expect that from Mora, 55, who has been barred from the Miami housing market since he finished his 13-year prison stretch. But Attorney General Bill McCollum has joined the chorus, calling local residency ordinances that force sex offenders into homelessness ``very wrong.'' And Gov. Charlie Crist has finally offered up a tepid acknowledgement that something has gone amiss.
JUST BAD POLICY
Ron Book, the very lobbyist who originally pushed city and county commissioners to adopt the overreaching ordinances that chased sex offenders under the causeway (some have dubbed the homeless colony ``Bookville,'') now talks about ratcheting back the 2,500-foot restricted radiuses around schools, playgrounds, parks, etc.
Even Miami-Dade County commissioners have been uttering the unhappy sounds of politicians who realize their ill-conceived ordinance has created a stinking monument to bad public policy smack in the middle of Biscayne Bay.
All that, yet Rene Mora still sleeps there every night in his battered van, away from his wife and her apartment. And despite the talk, threats, promises and Ron Book's assertion that he can find legal housing for the sex offenders, there was no sign Wednesday that the Tuttle situation has improved.
Compared with six months ago, more homeless men reside there in ever worsening conditions. Trash now overwhelms the place. They still live without toilets or running water, and now the heat of a Miami summer cooks up a fetor of rotting garbage, human waste, dead fish and unwashed bodies. Tents and parked cars now line the berm on either side of the bridge -- putting the inanity of residency restrictions in plain sight for passing motorists.
WHY NO ACTION?
For two years now, this unsanitary affront to a civilized society has festered on Biscayne Bay. The Miami-Dade Commission could make it vanish instantly with a countywide ordinance pulling back the restrictions. But all we get is talk.
And lawsuits. The city of Miami has sued the state. The ACLU has sued the county. Sen. Dave Aronberg, who tried, futilely, the last two years to shepherd through legislation cutting residency restrictions to 1,500 feet while adding very tough sex-offender loitering laws, thinks certain ``cowardly'' political leaders ducked the issue and hoped, instead, that some judge will take the political heat.
So now we can wait for a judge to undo the Tuttle conundrum. Or wait until 2010, when Sen. Aronberg thinks his legislation -- and good sense -- will finally prevail.
Until then, expect a lot of talk. ..Source.. by FRED GRIMM
August 18, 2009
FL- Some sex offenders find housing
8-18-2009 Florida:
Progress is being made in relocating convicted sex offenders from the Julia Tuttle Causeway, but advocates still need more housing options.
The number of homeless convicted sex offenders who set up an encampment under the Julia Tuttle Causeway is slowly dwindling, but activists say they still need affordable housing for the many who still remain.
At its height, about 70 sexual offenders and predators -- as well as some other homeless people -- lived under the bridge, attracting unflattering national media attention for Miami. Now there are fewer than 50 people.
Two left Monday, with the help of Ron Book, chairman of Miami-Dade's Homeless Trust, who has sought to relocate residents.
It's no easy task.
Most local laws require sex offenders to live at least 2,500 feet away from where children congregate: schools, playgrounds, parks and even some libraries. The laws are being challenged on a variety of legal fronts.
The area under the bridge is controlled by the state Department of Corrections, and government officials in both Miami and Miami-Dade County have urged the state to remove the dwellers.
Some have left on their own accord, tired of the media attention. Others, however, have received help from Book and his agency, which helps provide shelter and treatment for the homeless.
In recent weeks, the agency has run several ads in local newspapers calling on all willing owners of local housing units to contact the agency.
Book said the agency will receive federal stimulus money in September to help jobless or underemployed offenders afford their own homes. The agency has agreed to pay for the first and last month's rent at every offender's newly acquired housing unit -- and, if needed, could pay for several more months.
All the offenders would have to do is comply.
But it's not that simple. Some don't want to move -- that is, with the agency's help.
For two men who call themselves Reggie and Joey, their defiance sprouts from distrust: They said they've heard these promises before. And while release from the fetters of makeshift shanties, colorful tents and cardboard boxes sounds tempting, they say it's not real.
``I should have been in an apartment three weeks ago,'' Joey said Monday.
The 36-year-old said the agency promised him a check after he found a suitable apartment. The check never came, and the landlord refused to work with the agency, causing the rental agreement to dissolve, he said.
Book acknowledges there have been setbacks, but blames the resistant offenders for not taking part in the program.
``We're serious about resettling these folks,'' he said. ``We're going to move as aggressively as possible to do what we can.''
Book points to a couple -- a sex offender husband who lived under the bridge and his nonoffender wife -- who were transported to a new location Monday morning. Days earlier, a handful of others were moved to affordable housing.
Book has explored about 95 different properties, noting he got a tremendous response from ads placed in The Miami Herald and a few other local papers.
``We received several dozen calls, so we felt it was a good investment,'' Book said. ``Our staff is pursuing locations, some of which may work, some that don't comply with the law . . . but I have different needs in different parts of the community.''
He said some of the offenders have jobs in the restaurant industry and need to have access to transportation.
The North Miami-Dade Correctional facility remains an option, but cannot be the sole solution, he said.
``We have a population that is somewhat selective where they are willing to live,'' he said. ``But there is going to come a time when we may be out of housing and they may be out of luck.'' ..Source.. by JULIE BROWN AND JOSE PAGLIERY
August 14, 2009
FL- Miami sex offenders limited to life under a bridge
8-14-2009 Florida:
The roar of rush hour wakes him: trucks, cars and buses thundering across the causeway above his tent. Behind the shack next to his, someone guns a generator. Spanish music blares from a boom box. Homer Barkley turns on his side, pulls the covers over his head. His mother gave him these sheets when he got out of prison, to use at his brother's house, where he planned to stay. Instead, the sheets cover an air mattress Barkley hauled down here more than a year ago, when he found out he had to live on the edge of Biscayne Bay, with 70 other people convicted of committing sex crimes against kids. Home now is a spit of sand beneath a highway overpass. It's the punishment after the punishment.
Tattered tents line the abutment below the bridge. On the wide landing near the water, bigger tents and plywood sheds hug the dirty shore. There is nowhere to escape heat or bugs or storms. No electricity, except for a communal generator plugged into a tangle of extension cords.
And though people on parole are supposed to stay out here all night, there is no toilet. They go in a pickle bucket then dump it into the bay. The closest running water is at a Shell station a half-hour's hike away.
On the underside of the bridge, someone has spray-painted reminders: "They don't want us to make it." "We R not monsters." And, simply, "Why?"
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Everyone agrees on that. The state, the city and county, the Department of Corrections and the ACLU — none of them wanted to shove these people under a bridge. Even the man who got Miami to adopt stricter laws against paroled sex offenders says he is surprised at what he has wrought.
"It's a terrible situation for everyone, for the public and all those people living out there in third-world squalor," says Ron Book.
Book, a well-known lobbyist, is a walking contradiction. As the father of a girl who was molested years ago by a nanny, he's a fierce advocate for tougher laws against sex offenders. But as the chairman of Miami's homeless trust, he's supposed to look out for the people he helped put under the bridge.
"Those people out there know how I feel about them," he says. "But I've got to put my own emotions in check and figure out how to deal with all this.
"We didn't anticipate how big this problem could get."
Here's what happened: Florida law says people on parole for crimes against kids have to live at least 1,000 feet from any school, playground or park. Book pressured Miami-Dade to more than double that buffer to 2,500 feet — almost a half-mile. And he added school bus stops to off-limit areas.
In the crowded city, those restrictions left virtually nowhere registered offenders could live.
Which explains why Homer Barkley's driver's license lists his address simply as "Julia Tuttle Causeway."
• • •
Barkley grew up in Miami, dropped out of school in ninth grade, stole a car, broke into some houses, resisted arrest. In 1992, according to a police report, he crept into the bedroom of his girlfriend's 10-year-old daughter and assaulted her anally and vaginally. He was 26.
Barkley took a plea bargain and was sentenced to 10 years for attempted sexual battery on a child. He got more time for assaulting another inmate and violating his probation.
When he got out in January 2008, his brother picked him up at prison and drove him to check in with his probation officer. Barkley announced his plans to stay with his brother.
"You have to stay at the bridge," he says the officer told him. He thought it was a halfway house.
But the officer took him across the causeway that links Miami to Miami Beach, turned around and threaded through a split in the guardrail, bumped down a dirt path. Barkley saw the shabby tents clinging to the concrete. On the gritty beach below, men were fishing for their dinner. Barkley sat on the shore, hugging his knees, watching the dark water creep closer.
"You'll never get used to it," a new neighbor told him. "But it's better than prison. Most of the time."
• • •
On this sticky summer Thursday, four months before his probation ends, Barkley yawns and unzips his front door. The stench of exhaust, fish and sweat is sickening. He sees his neighbor peeing on the shore.
"What happened last night?" calls Barkley, 44. "My fan went off and it got so damn hot in there I couldn't stand it."
"Generator ran out of gas," the guy says, adjusting his pants. It is cranking again now because somebody took up a collection and went across the bridge to get more.
Barkley nods. He picks up a plastic jug, pours water into a bucket, swirls in liquid soap and dunks a washcloth. Standing on the square of carpet outside his tent, he swabs his arms, his chest, his gray-flecked beard. He walks to the beach to brush his teeth, squats and spits into seaweed.
"Hey, you going in today?" Barkley asks his friend, Mark Wilson, who comes by to bum Pepsodent. "I got a bunch of things I got to do."
He has to find his cousin or sister, someone who will let him take a shower. He needs to talk to a psychiatrist because he has been depressed. He wants to go see this guy who just bought a foreclosed property; the guy wants Barkley to move in, with whoever else can afford $400 rent.
"You want in?" Barkley asks Wilson, 29. "You want to get out of here?"
"Ain't going to happen," Wilson says.
"Think positive," says Barkley. "This is me, not Ron Book."
For breakfast, he pulls a slice of last night's cornbread from his microwave. Then he tugs a T-shirt over his shaved head, stuffs his cell phone and his last $12 into a string backpack and straps a black box around his waist. The box sends signals to the monitor on his ankle so the cops can track his every move.
As the sun begins to bake the bay, Barkley and Wilson zip their tents, scale a steep concrete slope and trek 1.5 miles along the shoulder of the Julia Tuttle Causeway — back toward the city that banished them.
• • •
The first tent popped up more than two years ago. Since then the colony has grown to almost 80 residents. Most are sex offenders. The rest are homeless people who heard they won't get hassled at the bridge.
The sex offenders include 20-something men with gold grills on their teeth and a stooped 84-year-old who feeds feral cats; married men whose wives bed down with them in beater cars; and dads who see their kids on Sundays, at the grandparents' house; plus one woman who exposed herself to her girlfriend's children and stays in a trailer.
They are Romeos of 19 who loved underage Juliets, old men who violated young boys, young men who slept with girls who sure looked 21. Nobody talks about any of that. Out here, everyone is an outcast.
Some guys have built plywood shanties; one has a window. Some put padlocks on their tent doors. One man just stretches out on his back on the pavement.
They share food and bus tokens. Someone brought a rusty barbecue grill. Someone found a cooler. Someone plugged an orange extension cord into a coughing generator and strung it over the pilings, adding outlets for each new arrival. Most of the guys have fans and DVD players in their tents. One has a PlayStation. Every day, it seems, someone new shows up.
By last summer, the abutment was so full of tents that some started spilling onto the landing below. This spring, newcomers overflowed onto the grassy shoulder along the interstate. Suddenly, the lepers became visible.
It was all more than the ACLU could take. The organization sued Miami-Dade County on July 9, saying local laws virtually eliminated every place sex offenders could live, "thereby increasing the danger to society."
The next day, Miami sued the state, saying the Department of Corrections created a public nuisance by letting parolees camp on city property.
The story has been in Newsweek and National Public Radio. It has raised questions of justice and freedom, community safety vs. civic responsibility. The penal system released these people — then the community exiled them to a concrete island. You can hate the sex offenders or feel sorry for them — or perhaps both — but it's hard to look beneath the Julia Tuttle Causeway without asking yourself: Is this really what we had in mind?
• • •
Some of the men below the bridge have jobs. Some fry burgers, fix cars or mow yards. Most say they want to work, but no one wants them.
Barkley says he has applied for a dozen positions, from day laborer to dishwasher. He wants to work at a restaurant, he says, so he can "eat regular." His relatives give him odd jobs, buy him canned goods, wash his clothes. He spends his days navigating a maze of social services, reporting to classes and officers, having doors slammed in his face. When he has nothing to do, he rides the bus. It's air conditioned.
Wilson, who served three years for attempted sexual battery on a child younger than 12, is going to community college. He wants to work in an office. He needs to support his 3-year-old son.
Whether they have incomes or not, sexual offenders have to pay the state $20 a week for their rehab classes. They have to find their own meals, bus fare, bottled water. Barkley owes his probation officer $1,827 for his tracking box, plus $1,437.14 for supervision. He even has to pay for his own drug tests.
• • •
When the sun starts to sink, it's time for Barkley to head back to the bridge. He doesn't want to. He's tired of sleeping in a tent, battling bugs and hunger.
He fantasizes about cutting off his ankle monitor, just walking away. One guy under the bridge did it, and no one ever found him. What's the worst that could happen? They'd send him back to prison?
About 9:30, Barkley ducks into a gas station and spends his last $5 on a four-pack of Miller High Life. The cold cans bounce against his leg all the way across the bridge.
"Hey, how'd it go?" Wilson calls when he sees Barkley picking his way down the embankment in the dark.
Barkley sets his bag in front of his tent, pulls up a milk crate. "Well, I got me a shower. And the psychiatrist said I was depressed. He gave me a prescription, but I don't got the money to fill it." His voice drops. "Oh, and everything with that house I told you about? It fell through."
He hides his face in his hands. The house was his only real shot at getting out from under the bridge. "The state guys said that address was okay. I checked," Barkley says. "But now the city put in a new school bus stop. So we can't be there."
He hands Wilson a beer, then holds up another. A golden stream spills from the bottom, runs down his arm. He must have crushed the can climbing over the guardrail.
He peels off his T-shirt, wipes his arm, swats a mosquito.
Across the bay, he watches the lights of Miami's skyscrapers wink on, piercing the blackness below the bridge.
• • •
The words scroll across Barkley's electronic monitor a week later: "Come in Friday ... bring all your equipment." He calls his probation officer and asks what's going on.
You failed your urine test, the officer tells him. Smoking reefer again, huh?
Turns out the foreclosed house wasn't the only way out of here.
Later, packing his tent, Barkley won't admit he was trying to get sent back to prison. But he doesn't seem sorry to leave this netherworld by the bay.
"In a way, it will be a break, after being out here for so long," he says. "I haven't really relaxed since I came home."
He catches himself, and laughs.
"I can't believe I just called this place home." ..Source.. by Lane DeGregory, Times Staff Writer
August 13, 2009
FL- City Keeps Homefield Advantage in Sex Offender Suit
No doubt, on appeal, the city will lose, case will go to Tallahassee..
8-13-2009 Florida:
Sex offender lawsuit to stay in the city
Miami has won Round 1 against the state in a fight to remove registered sex offenders from under the Julia Tuttle bridge.
A judge has ruled that a Miami lawsuit over a sex offender camp under a bridge should stay in the city.
Circuit Court Judge Victoria Sigler ruled Thursday that the lawsuit should not be transferred to Tallahassee, as lawyers for the state of Florida had argued. The decision will be appealed.
The camp for offenders has grown over the past three years with offenders having a hard time finding affordable housing that doesn't violate Miami-Dade County laws about how close offenders can live to schools and parks. Miami officials say the camp is too close to a small island park accessible only by boat.
Lawyers did not argue a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which has also been filed. Arguments on that motion were set for Aug. 20. ..Source.. by TODD WRIGHT
FL- Hearing On Julia Tuttle Causeway Sex Offenders
8-13-2009 Florida:
An emergency hearing will be held Thursday concerning a colony of sex offenders living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway.
Miami's ordinance bars registered sex offenders from living with 25 hundred feet of parks or other places where children gather. State law, however, only requires a one thousand foot limit. Due to the tighter restrictions in Miami-Dade more than seventy sex offenders found no where else in the county to live except for a section of land under the mainland bridge section of the causeway. .The state even ordered some of them to live there.
Last month the Miami officials sued the state for creating a sanitary nuisance which violated their ordinance.
Now the state wants that lawsuit dismissed and the case moved to Tallahassee, according to CBS4 news partners The Miami Herald, because that is where the Department of Transportation, which has authority over the bridge structure, is headquartered.
The emergency hearing has been scheduled for 2 p.m.
Miami-Dade officials and homeless advocates have been working to find some other place for the sex offenders to live under the current law. One location under consideration is the former North Dade Detention Center which closed in 2007. The center is located near the Golden Glades interchange and some residents who live in the area are opposed to the idea of sex offenders moving into their neighborhood.
Another ideal place, according to Miami-Dade Homeless Trust chairman Ronald Book, would be an apartment or former hotel that is in foreclosure.
But large issues remain, such as who would supervise the residents, pay for liability insurance, and their rent, which officials agree shouldn't be the taxpayer in a long-term solution. ..Source.. by CBS News
August 8, 2009
RI- Update: Judge's homeless-camp decision in 3 parts
8-8-2009 Rhode Island:
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A Superior Court hearing on the state's efforts to move homeless people out of the makeshift camps they set up has come down to a decision with three parts.
In part one, Judge Jeffrey A. Lanphear issued a temporary restraining order against encampment number one, which was previously known as Camp Runamuck, near Wickenden Street in Providence. This camp has been virtually abandoned by the homeless already. The temporary restraining order in effect evicts anyone who might still be staying there.
Part two involved the so-called Camp Runamuck II, which the state refers to as "encampment number three." That matter has been continued for one week. The state Department of Transportation and the state Department of Administration have agreed they will not clear out the camp before the hearing, but that would not preclude the police or another agency from taking action based on some infraction of the law.
Part three involves the encampment called "Hope City," which is under a Route 195 ramp and is known to the state as "encampment number 2." Lawyers for the state and Hope City have agreed that the 12 adults remaining there will leave by Aug. 24, and that no new people are allowed to move there. The state lawyers agreed that the state's government and nonprofit agencies will provide services to residents of Hope City.
Barbara Ferrara, Hope City treasurer, said that later Friday night the residents will disclose the location they will move to by Aug. 24. They plan to move to privately owned land, according to Ferrara.
The hearing was originally scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday in Superior Court, but after a half-hour closed-door conference, Judge Jeffrey A. Lanphear postponed it until 2 p.m.
The state is attempting to evict about 43 homeless people from camps in Providence and East Providence.
Directors of the state Department of Administration and the Department of Transportation filed a complaint in Superior Court saying that residents of the tent cities are trespassing, that the encampments lack clean water, sanitary facilities or waste disposal services, that they attract rats and other disease-carrying vermin and that they are within 200 feet of a riverbank.
Sheriffs hand-delivered notices to each "John Doe" and "Jane Doe" in two camps and taped notices, in English and Spanish, on posts at Hope City and Camp Runamuck II, as well as at the abandoned original Camp Runamuck.
About 30 people live at Camp Runamuck II under the Route 195 bridge on the east side of the Seekonk River in East Providence.
About 13 are living at Hope City under a former entrance ramp to Route 195 on the west side of the Providence River in Providence.
-- With reports from Journal staff writer Gregory Smith ..Source.. by Jack Perry
RI- Tent-dwellers told to leave
8-8-2009 Rhode Island:
About 43 homeless people living in two makeshift camps were served notice Thursday that arguments for evicting them will be heard at 11 a.m. Friday in Superior Court, Providence.
Sheriffs hand-delivered notices to each “John Doe” and “Jane Doe” in two camps and taped notices, in English and Spanish, on posts at Hope City and Camp Runamuck II, as well as at the abandoned original Camp Runamuck.
Directors of the state Department of Administration and the Department of Transportation filed a complaint in Superior Court saying that residents of the tent cities are trespassing, that the encampments lack clean water, sanitary facilities or waste disposal services, that they attract rats and other disease-carrying vermin and that they are within 200 feet of a riverbank.
At Camp Runamuck II, where about 30 people are living in East Providence under the Route 195 bridge on the east side of the Seekonk River, Sheriff Gary Dias handed out notices as state police Capt. Kenneth Marandola briefed residents.
The same thing happened at Hope City in Providence, where about 13 are living under a former entrance ramp to Route 195 on the west side of the Providence River.
“We wanted to be sure to follow due process,” said Amy Kempe, a spokeswoman for Governor Carcieri’s office. She said Noreen Shawcross, chief of the office of Housing and Community Development, was asked to invite service providers to match people with programs after notice was served.
“We’re pretty sure that somewhere in our system we have the right service for each person,” Shawcross said at 3 p.m. as a truck delivered tables to set up a makeshift assistance center at Runamuck II.
By 5:30 p.m., “Every single person here has spoken with someone,” Shawcross said. “Some made appointments for next week for various services. We have taken applications for people expressing a willingness to move to a couples shelter we are planning on opening in a few weeks.”
Outreach workers from the Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals linked more than a dozen people to services, including one who “is in need of detox” and another headed for a methadone program, said Craig Stenning.
Workers for the state Department of Human Services helped people apply for SNAP, or food stamp, benefits and general public assistance. “We were able to make an initial contact,” said Donalda Carlson at Runamuck II. “If the group as a whole, wherever they are, have a need, we will come and help, as opposed to coming unannounced.” Residents had bristled when officials first arrived in uniform and wearing color-coded mesh vests. At one point, assistance providers outnumbered residents.
Stenning explained the vests are used to identify counselors at disaster sites, such as the Station fire.
After learning the vests were intimidating, mental health workers removed them.
Hope City leaders acknowledged that they can’t stay under a highway overpass much longer but also said they plan to fight the state’s efforts to remove them immediately.
“We never planned on staying,” said Barbara Ferraro, treasurer of Hope City.
“Tell Governor Carcieri that I’ll put these tents on his front lawn,” said Roland Colpitts, the chairman of the encampment.
Ferraro’s knowledge of the social service system impressed Lori Dorsey, a senior public health promotion specialist with the MHRH.
“You could be a social worker,” she told Ferraro, after Ferraro explained that she regularly helps newcomers apply for food stamps and other services.
Ferraro explained that the members of Hope City don’t want to return to shelters.
“Many don’t want to abide by the rules of a shelter,” Kempe said, adding that shelters do not permit the use of drugs or alcohol, nor do they permit weapons. “The Office of Housing and the Department of Human Services are down there offering housing solutions.”
“We want a house,” Colpitts said. “I don’t want to stay under a bridge. But the waiting list for [public] housing is up to five years.”
At Runamuck II, Barbara Kalil, 50, told an assembly of reporters: “While we are grateful for this assistance,” she said, “we are concerned that our homeless peers across the state are not receiving this level of service. Homelessness, including tent encampments, is a statewide problem and must be considered as such. Runamuck may be the most visible manifestation of the problem, but it is far from the only one.”
Jim Ryczek, executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless, said the number of homeless people in May jumped to 933 from 707 for the same year-ago period, a 32 percent increase.
Emergency shelter beds aren’t the answer, especially if the population surges in the winter, he said.
“The pipeline is getting more and more clogged,” he said. “No one has come up with a plan for the winter.”
Kalil said the unemployed campers included carpenters and electricians. “Why can’t they go into a place and fix it up and live in it at the same time,” taking one foreclosed home off the books.
No one was at the first Camp Runamuck site, under an old highway ramp off South Water Street, to see the taped notice. All that remained was black garbage bags, busted tables and a handful of stools, chairs and bikes piled near the bridge.
Hope City: About 13 residents
Camp Runamuck: Largely abandoned
Camp Runamuck II: About 30 residents
The state says the tent cities lack clean water, sanitary facilities or waste disposal services and attract rats and other disease-carrying vermin.
Some residents refuse to abide by shelter rules which prohibit drug and alcohol use. Others say the state has not done enough to provide housing or jobs. ..Source.. by Donita Naylor, Linda Borg and PAUL DAVIS, Journal Staff Writers
August 7, 2009
FL- Miami threatens to fine state over Julia Tuttle Causeway sex-offender camp
I find it really stupid of Miami to get in a hissing match w/the state, after all I think it is the state that has control of the legislature and could cause Miami a world of hurt. Well, what does one expect from the place with the dumbest residency laws. Hopefully Miami will get nailed in the courts very soon, after all, who caused the problem? Hummm, just a minute, is this another way cities can USE sex offenders to generate income?
8-7-2009 Florida:
In the latest twist in the fate of sex offenders living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway, the city of Miami says state authorities have violated city code.
In the latest push to relocate a camp of sex offenders living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway, a Miami code enforcement board this week said it will fine the state if the offenders are not relocated.
At a meeting Wednesday night, the city code enforcement board found the state guilty of violating city code. The city plans to send a letter to Gov. Charlie Crist and the Florida Department of Transportation in the next few days giving the state 24 hours to move the people living under the bridge, City Manager Pete Hernandez said. If the state doesn't comply, the city will fine the state $250 a day.
The latest legal wrangling over the camp of about 70 sex offenders started last month.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued Miami-Dade County, arguing that the state's rule that sex offenders must live at least 1,000 feet from where children congregate supersedes the county's stricter 2,500-foot ordinance.
The next day, Miami sued the state, saying the camp is too close to Picnic Island No. 4, an island park in Biscayne Bay accessible only by boat. The sex offenders are monitored by the Florida Department of Corrections.
Ron Book -- who is chairman of Miami-Dade's Homeless Trust and has been working to relocate those living under the causeway -- said he wasn't surprised by the code enforcement board's actions.
He said he hoped the decision doesn't cause any friction with the state in the effort to find a place to move the offenders.
``No one contests there's a nuisance under that causeway,'' he said. ``The city wants to get the state's attention.''
Book said he's working to find suitable housing for the offenders.
Using monies from the county's Homeless Trust, Book on Thursday authorized checks for first and last month rent for three sex offenders to move from the bridge.
The search continues for a location that would be able to house a larger number of offenders. He has found a centrally located building that is ``totally unoccupied that has a lot of promise'' but declined to say where it is.
He recently found a private apartment building in South Miami-Dade to house eight people -- but he said they aren't happy about moving so far south where public transportation is limited. ..Source.. by JENNIFER LEBOVICH
August 6, 2009
FL- Picture Depicts Kids Present At Sex Predator Camp
Hey world, even former sex offenders have family and likely someone was visiting!
8-6-2009 Florida:
There are fresh worries and renewed anger about the camp under and around the Julia Tuttle Causeway--one populated by more than 70 sexual offenders--after a new picture was revealed at a commission meeting Thursday.
Miami's code enforcement board showed pictures of children playing under the causeway at their city hall meeting Wednesday night. There was worry the children were living with relatives in the squalid camp, but those concerns appear to be unfounded.
Still, its cause for louder outcry that the state do something about offenders it is supposed to supervise upon their release from prison—something more, that is, than let them set up camp on Biscayne Bay.
Miami commissioner Marc Sarnoff said, "It is an abject failure of the State of Florida to continue to have sex offenders under the bridge."
The failure has blame being spread in many directions. That includes the critics of the Miami-Dade ordinance that say sexual offenders and predators must stay at least 2,500 feet away from any place where children congregate, including schools, parks, and daycare facilities. The state rule requires offenders to stay at least 1,000 feet away from such places.
The critics argue local restrictions make it doubly tough for sexual offenders who have served their time to find a place to live. The Miami-Dade Homeless Trust chairman, Ron Book, keeps pressing for an answer but a lot of help is not forthcoming, at least not yet.
Book says that whatever one's view of the people under the Tuttle causeway, it is not serving community safety to have them living there. What's more, he worries about legal action to force them out, without first making sure there is housing available somewhere. Book says, "Having 71 offenders running around the community without knowing where they are is a worse solution."
The frustrations keep growing and the national—indeed international—coverage keeps building. It is not a pretty picture, but from the governor's office to local government halls, no one has stepped up yet to embrace a solution. ..Source.. by Michael Williams
August 5, 2009
FL- Where neighbors are sex offenders: Housing restrictions for released predators create dilemma
8-5-2009 Florida:
Restrictive housing laws mean released predators are forced to live in clusters
Just outside Pahokee, 28 registered sex offenders live in a community that once housed migrants who worked in the sugar cane fields.
They have served prison time for charges such as sexual battery on a child younger than 12, lewd and lascivious molestation and using the Internet to try to solicit a child for sex, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
With at least 17 laws restricting where Palm Beach County's 835 registered sex offenders can live, it's resulting in a clustering of sex offenders, such as those living in Pahokee's Pelican Lake community.
"They have served their time and are still in prison, in essence, because of the laws and regulations," said Dick Witherow, director of Matthew 25 Ministries, which runs a prison aftercare program. Through an affiliate company, Matthew 25 leases the Pelican Lake development and rents the units to registered sex offenders.
Others who live in the 25-unit duplex community are not registered sex offenders. There's an ongoing investigation by the county and the Fair Housing Center of the Greater Palm Beaches alleging that families with children were illegally forced out of their homes.
Likewise, in Broward County, 92 registered sex offenders live in one square-mile in the Broadview Park community, the largest of three small pockets left in unincorporated Broward where offenders legally can find a home.
To help that neighborhood, Broward commissioners in April passed an emergency ordinance barring any more offenders from moving in.
Before the law expires in October, commissioners are expected to discuss making it permanent. Part of that debate would center on the likelihood that more sex offenders and predators would become wanderers who are hard to monitor.
Broward has 1,275 registered sex offenders.
Broadview Park became such a haven for sex offenders that one business-savvy offender, Randy Young, set up group homes, including a five-bedroom home that once housed 24 offenders. Young, 53, was convicted in 2003 of lewd or lascivious conduct on a minor.
Today, he runs a website called Housingforsexoffenders.com. He specializes in finding areas like Broadview Park throughout the state and converting houses into group homes.
"Business has snowballed," Young said recently. "I have doctors, I have probation officers, I have public defenders all calling me every day to find out if I have a place for someone."
Opponents of strict residential requirements for offenders worry that pushing predators away only makes it harder to keep track of them.
"This is not an issue of feeling sympathetic for sex offenders," said Jill Levenson, assistant professor of human services at Lynn University Bachelor's, master's & online degrees and chairwoman of a 13-member Broward County Commission task force studying the issue. "We're looking at an issue where every solution creates another problem."
She and others point to Miami-Dade County, where housing for offenders has been all but eliminated. As of June, Miami-Dade had 175 sex offenders listed as "transients." Broward County had 29; Palm Beach County had 21. Authorities do not know the whereabouts of 39 Palm Beach County offenders and 47 Broward offenders who have not reported their addresses and are classified as "absconded."
State Sen. Dave Aronberg, D- Greenacres, plans to keep pushing for a bill to create a standardized, statewide 1,500-foot rule that would include a 24-hour child-protection zone, banning loitering around schools, parks and libraries. A statewide standard would avoid unintended colonies of sex offenders.
For people convicted on or after Oct. 1, 2004, state law prohibits sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of any school, day care center, park or playground. In 2006, Palm Beach County enacted its own law with a stricter 2,500-foot ban.
In addition, 16 municipalities have their own laws, according to Detective Larry Wood of the Palm Beach County's Sheriff's Office Sexual Predator and Offender Tracking Unit. Other communities rely on the state or county laws. If an offender lived at an address prior to a law's passage, he or she is grandfathered
"And the county ordinance has a loophole that out-of-state convictions don't qualify [for sex offender residency restrictions] and you can live in unincorporated Palm Beach County," said Wood.
In Broward, 24 communities have adopted laws since 2005 restricting where offenders can live. Most set 2,500-foot buffer zones. Some were so restrictive that they effectively blanket an entire city.
Broward officials estimate there are only about 104,000 residential units left where sex offenders can legally live throughout the county.
"That number is an overestimation," said Glen Amoruso, a county planner. "In some areas, there might not be any units available at all."
For Witherow, Matthew 25's director, his goal in providing housing at Pahokee's Pelican Lake is to help offenders move beyond their past. Classes such as anger management and living lives of sexual purity are offered, he said.
"There's literally no place [sex offenders] can live according to residency laws as they are now," he said. "Most offenders are not monsters." ..Source.. by Missy Diaz and Ihosvani Rodriguez, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
RI- Update: Camp Runamuck leader held without bail
This "Failure to Register" case presents some very interesting -and unusual- circumstances: 1) The man had FINISHED his term of registration in Massachusetts before moving to Rhode Island; 2) He moves to RI as a homeless person. It is not illogical for this man to beleieve he DOES NOT have to register based on those facts. So, the question becomes, how does RI sex offender registration law handle DUE PROCESS? i.e., notify him of any duty to register.
The U.S. Supreme court in a SO register case (Lambert -v- California) held, that somehow, a local jurisdiction must notify a person of the duty to register BEFORE arresting him for FAILING to comply with the local law.
Note: There appears to be a problem in the RI Sex Offender Registraion law, while I agree the law seems to require him to register, but, there is nothing in the law notifying him of that duty (remember he has special circumstances).
Given there are those who will contest my interpretation, think of this, if the legislature made a law requring ALL folks to get State IDs, and only stood on the steps pf the legislature and screamed out the law to anyone that was listening, could they then arrest anyone who HAD NOT HEARD that NOTICE? Does that answer the issue!
Never forget, the circumstances of a case determine whether or not this U.S. Sup court case would apply. Lets see how the court handles this case...hopefully the lawyer will present this U.S. Sup court case. Sex offender laws are not common sense laws. i.e., thou shall not murder, or beat up thy neighbor etc. (IT is also true most SO laws make no sense, but thats another issue)
8-5-2009 Rhode Island:
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A District Court judge Wednesday sent ____, the leader of an East Providence homeless group, back to jail for violating the terms of his bail.
____, 55, was arrested Friday for failing to register as a level-3 sex offender. A supporter paid his bail on Saturday.
But when ____ failed to notify police of his address or his status as a sex offender, Providence Police arrested him again on Tuesday. "He did not go to the police" the day he left prison or the following Sunday or Monday, said Assistant Attorney General Bethany Macktaz.
When asked by Judge Magistrate Joseph P. Ippolito, Jr. where ____ is staying, Macktaz said, "We don't know where he is living now."
Ippolito ordered ____ to be held without bail at the Adult Correctional Institutions until an Aug. 12 court appearance.
____ was convicted of several sex crimes more than 20 years ago in Massachusetts. His lawyer, Arthur Parise, said he believes _____ is not required to register in Rhode Island. But Macktaz argued that the state law is clear, and that _____ must register with a local police department.
Megan Smith, a spokeswoman for Camp Runamuck, the group living under a bridge in East Providence, said the homeless community supports _____ and is hoping for a "quick and favorable resolution." ..Source.. by Paul Davis, Journal Staff Writer
August 4, 2009
FL- Bill McCollum: Sex-offender bans are faulty
8-4-2009 Florida:
State Attorney General Bill McCollum is advocating a sweeping overhaul of local ordinances that ban sex offenders and predators from living within 2,500 feet of schools.
Republican Bill McCollum has made a career out of being tough on crime, first as a congressman agitating against Islamic terrorists and more recently as the state attorney general crusading against Internet sex predators.
Yet in a recent interview on Spanish-language radio in Miami, McCollum said ``it's very wrong'' that sex offenders have been relegated to living in squalid conditions under the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami-Dade. He said local governments that ban offenders from living within 2,500 feet of schools are ``responsible for making this much more difficult, and they need to change their ordinances.''
McCollum's remarks on Univision's WQBA-1140 AM on July 22 contradict the position taken by Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, who said last week that he wanted to be ``respectful'' of local ordinances that go farther than the state's 1,000-foot buffer zone around schools.
``The state law is fairly reasonable, but many counties and many cities have made it impossible for anybody to live. . . in a normal living environment,'' McCollum told interviewer Bernadette Pardo. ``It's very wrong.''
Some political strategists say McCollum's hard-line, conservative image could be a liability in his gubernatorial campaign against Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, who would be the state's first female chief executive. McCollum was the only Cabinet member to vote against reforms aimed at helping ex-felons to get their voting rights back.
Ron Book, the chairman of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust who has been trying to find housing for the squatters under the bridge, noted McCollum's record is ``extraordinarily strong'' on child molesters and other law-and-order issues.
``I'm a little surprised at the attorney general's comments because, in my opinion, I don't think it's the 2,500-foot ordinances that created the problem,'' Book said. ``If the attorney general thinks local governments are going to repeal their ordinances, he's not accurate . . . We're talking about people who have been accused and convicted of sexual deviant behavior.''
Since 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford was raped and murdered in a Central Florida town in 2005, a slew of local governments have sought to exile sex offenders from areas near schools and parks. Critics charge that the irregular patchwork of laws has forced sex offenders underground and made it harder for law enforcement to monitor them. The group of roughly 70 convicted offenders living under the Miami-Dade causeway without toilets or running water has sparked national debate.
In the radio interview, McCollum noted that local restrictions fail to consider differences in the severity of the crimes. ``Some of the people who are listed as sex offenders under state law and people are afraid of haven't committed the same serious crimes that you and I think of,'' he said. ``The law needs to be changed.''
McCollum appears to be siding with the American Civil Liberties Union, which is suing Miami-Dade over its 2,500-foot rule. The attorney general clashed with the ACLU over the state's clemency laws in 2007.
``He may not like to hear us say this, but good for Bill McCollum,'' said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida. ``Any law that treats the guy that urinates on the side of the road or the 17-year-old with the 15-year-old girlfriend the same as someone who violently assaults a young person -- it's a stupid, irrational legal system, but that's what we have in Florida.''
Both the attorney general's office and McCollum's campaign declined requests for comment, citing the city of Miami's lawsuit against the state over the sex offenders' camp. ..Source.. by BETH REINHARD
RI- Leader of Tent City in Rhode Island Arrested
8-4-2009 Rhode Island:
The leader of a homeless encampment in Providence, R.I., was arrested Friday night on a charge that he had failed to register as a convicted sex offender. He spent a night in prison before a supporter posted his bail on Saturday afternoon.
The leader, ___, 55, has emerged as a public figure in Rhode Island since early April, when he established a tent city for the homeless under an abandoned bridge in downtown Providence. He has been featured in several newspaper accounts about the camp, including a This Land column that appeared on the front page of The New York Times on Friday, and has been interviewed on local talk-radio programs.
Mr. _____ told the Times last month that his past as a convicted sex offender in Massachusetts — with his last conviction dating back more than 20 years — is well known among those in the camp. He also said that he has diligently notified authorities in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts of his whereabouts, but was under the belief that the requirement that he register had lapsed. This belief was bolstered, he said, because he had often spoken with police officials visiting the encampment, and has been so public as the camp’s leader.
According to the Web site for the Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board, Mr. _____ was convicted of rape and abuse of a child, in 1978, and of indecent assault on a child in 1978, 1986, and 1987. Mr. _____ said that after serving several years in prison, he has had a clean record and has held several jobs, including as a supervisor at a wire factory. But a layoff, combined with health issues, led ultimately to homelessness, he said, first in shelters and then in tent cities.
After being told by state officials that the Providence encampment — which did not include children — would have to break up, in part for safety reasons, Mr. ____ moved the group several days ago to a spot underneath another bridge, in East Providence. The police in that community were frequent visitors to the encampment, taking photographs and sometimes checking identifications of the camp’s 40 or so denizens, including that of Mr. _____.
Finally, on Friday night, Providence and East Providence police arrested Mr. _____ on a charge of failing to register as a Level 3 offender. His lawyer, Arthur Parise, said that Mr. _____ has provided him with many documents that “would indicate his requirement to register has in fact lapsed.”
“To my mind, he’s complied with everything he’s supposed to do,” Mr. Parise said. But he added that he is still investigating, and the court documents filed so far by law-enforcement authorities are not detailed beyond stating the alleged violation.
Charles McDonald, a spokesman for the Sex Offender Registry Board, said that a requirement for a Level 3 offender lasts either for 20 years or for life, depending on the conviction. ..Source.. by DAN BARRY, NY Times Photo credit to them as well.
Living in Tents, and by the Rules, Under a Bridge
7-30-2009 Rhode Island:
The chief emerges from his tent to face the leaden morning light. It had been a rare, rough night in his homeless Brigadoon: a boozy brawl, the wielding of a knife taped to a stick. But the community handled it, he says with pride, his day’s first cigar already aglow.
By community he means 80 or so people living in tents on a spit of state land beside the dusky Providence River: Camp Runamuck, no certain address, downtown Providence.
Because the two men in the fight had violated the community’s written compact, they were escorted off the camp, away from the protection of an abandoned overpass. One was told we’ll discuss this in the morning; the other was voted off the island, his knife tossed into the river, his tent taken down.
The chief flicks his spent cigar into that same river. There is talk of rain tonight.
Behind him, the camp stirs. Other tent cities have sprung up recently around the country, but Rhode Island officials have never seen anything like this. A tea kettle sings.
A heavily pierced young person walks by without picking up an empty plastic bottle, flouting the camp compact that says everyone will share in the labor. The compact may be as impermanent as this sudden community by the river, but for now it is binding. The chief speaks, the bottle is picked up.
The chief, _____, is 55, with a gray beard touched by tobacco rust. He did prison time decades ago, worked for years as a factory supervisor, then became homeless for all the familiar, complicated reasons.
Layoffs, health problems, a slip from apartment to motel room. His girlfriend, _____, 50, lost her job as a nursing-home nurse, and another slip, into the shelter system. A job holding store-liquidation signs beside the highway allowed for a climb back to a motel, but it didn’t last.
Weary of shelters, the couple pitched a pup tent in Roger Williams Park, close to a plaque bearing words Williams had used to describe this place he founded: “A Shelter for Persons in Distress.” But someone complained, so Mr. _____ set off again in search of shelter. The March winds blew.
Down South Main Street he went, past the majestic court building and the upscale seafood restaurant, over a guardrail to a gravelly plot beneath a ramp that once guided cars toward Cape Cod. Foul-smelling and partially hidden, a place of birds and rodents, it was perfect.
He and Ms. ____ set up camp with another couple in early April. Word of it spread from the shelters to Kennedy Plaza downtown, where homeless people share the same empty Tim Hortons cup to pose as customers worthy of visiting that doughnut chain’s restroom. The camp became 10 people, then 15, then 25. No children allowed.
“I was always considered the leader, the chief,” Mr. _____ says. “I was the one consulted about ‘Where should I put my tent?’ ”
By late June the camp had about 50 people. But someone questioned the role of Mr. _____ as chief, so he stepped down. Arguments broke out. Food was stolen.
“There was no center holding,” recalls Rachell Shaw, 22, who lives with her boyfriend in a tidy tent decorated with porcelain dolls. “So everybody voted him back in.”
The community also established a five-member leadership council and a compact that read in part: “No one person shall be greater than the will of the whole.”
It is now late afternoon in late July, a month after nearly everyone signed that compact. The community remains intact, though the very ground they walk on says nothing is forever. Here and there are the exposed foundations of fish shacks that lined the river long ago.
Some state officials recently stopped by to say, nicely but firmly, that everyone would soon have to leave. The overpass poses the threat of falling concrete, and is scheduled for demolition. The officials have shared the same message with a smaller encampment across the river.
For now, a game of horseshoes sends echoing clanks, as outreach workers conduct interviews and raindrops thrum the tent tops. The chief lights another cigar and walks the length of the camp to tell residents to batten down, explaining its structure as he goes.
Here at the end, nearest the road, are the tents of young single people and substance abusers; this way, rescue vehicles won’t disrupt the entire compound.
Here in the center are a cluster of couples, including two competing for the nicest property, with homey touches like planted flowers. Here too are the food table, the coolers, the piles of donated clothes — what can’t be used will be taken by camp residents to the Salvation Army — and the large tent of the chief. Plastic pink flamingos stand guard.
Farther on, the recycled-can area (the money is used for ice and propane); the area for garbage bags that will be discreetly dropped in nearby Dumpsters at night; and, behind a blue tarp hung from the overpass, a plastic toilet. The chief says the shared task of removing the bags of waste tends to test the compact.
Finally, near some rocks where men go to urinate, live a gay couple and some people who drink hard. Timothy Webb, 49, who says he used to own a salon in Cranston called Class Act, cuts people’s hair here. Then, at night, he and his partner, Norman Trank, 45, sit at a riverside table, a battery-operated candle giving light, the moving waters suggesting mystery.
“It’s what you make of it,” Mr. Trank says.
Dark clouds have brought night early to Providence. Heavy drops thump against tarp. Water drips from the overpass, onto the long table of food.
In the last couple of hours the chief has resolved a conflict about tarp distribution, hugged a pregnant woman who mistakenly thought she had been kicked off the island, conferred with outreach workers and helped with dinner preparations. He is also thinking about tomorrow.
Tomorrow, an advance party for the chief will leave to claim another spot across the river that turns out not to be on public property. Many in the camp will decide it’s time to move on anyway, to a spot under a bridge in East Providence. Camp Runamuck will begin its recession from sight and memory.
At least tonight there is a communal dinner: donated chicken, parboiled and grilled; donated corn on the cob; donated potatoes. People line up with paper plates.
The rain falls harder, pocking the river’s gray surface, surrounding the dark camp with a sound like fingers drumming in impatience. The chief hears it, but what can he do? He finishes his dinner and lights another cigar. ..Source.. by DAN BARRY, NY Times Photo credit to them as well.
August 2, 2009
FL- Man who helped change sex offender laws says he 'made Florida safer'
8-2-2009 Florida:
In 2000, Ron Book discovered that the nanny he employed was sexually molesting his daughter, Lauren, 16.
The woman was arrested and sentenced to prison. But Book, an influential lobbyist formerly of Miami-Dade now living in Broward, didn't stop there.
He helped pass an extension of the Florida statute of limitations for sex offenses against minors, tougher penalties for sex offenders misusing the Internet, enhanced state-funded treatment for victims, and more.
In what has become his most controversial initiative, he set out to persuade dozens of counties and municipalities - including in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast—to sharply restrict where sex offenders can live.
Today, many cities have buffer zones forcing sex offenders to live at least 2,500 feet from schools, parks, day care centers and school bus stops. Critics - including officials in law enforcement and corrections circles — say the new laws have left some offenders homeless and harder to track, but Book stands by his efforts.
"I sleep well at night knowing I have made Florida safer," he says.
Meanwhile in 2000, Dick Witherow of Lake Worth, a former private detective turned pastor, who preached to substance abusers and former convicts, began ministering to sex offenders.
He also had personal motivation. In 1953, at age 19 , he was arrested for impregnating his girlfriend, then 15. Facing a possible sentence of five years for statutory rape, he asked the judge for permission to marry instead. The judge agreed, Witherow avoided prison, and the couple were married for 25 years before her death in 1979.
That story is contained in his book, "The Modern Day Leper," which argues that today sex offenders are treated the way lepers were in Biblical times - as if any contact with the public is dangerous. He says in his own case, he would have been banished to prison instead of being given a chance to make a family and a productive life.
Witherow hastens to separate most offenders from sexual predators who commit violent crimes against children, like John Couey who raped and murdered Jessica Lunsford, 9, in Citrus County in 2005, helping provoke the expansion in buffer zones.Witherow says only about 1 percent of offenders are predators.
"Most of these men are regular people who made a mistake," he says. "They aren't guilty of horrible crimes. The idea should be to help them make a successful transition back to society. Treating them like monsters isn't the answer."
He says he has found that many offenders had drug and alcohol problems that led to their sex offenses and he helps treat those addictions.
Witherow also says the buffer zones are a pointless product of public hysteria.
"The living restrictions are useless and do nothing to protect children," he says. " In an overwhelming number of cases, it isn't strangers who commit these offenses, but people the children know well. Look at the case of the nanny, right in this man's home."
In his book, Witherow quotes a Congressman who stated that 100 percent of sex offenders repeat their offense. Ironically, the politician is former U.S Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach, who was driven from office after sending sexually suggestive messages to male pages in Congress.
"The truth is sexual offenders have a very low recidivism rate, less than 5 percent," Witherow says. "Ninety-five percent of sex crimes against minors are committed by new offenders and the living restrictions don't do anything to stop that."
Today, Witherow's Matthew 25 Ministries runs a program in Pahokee - Miracle Park - where some 30 sex offenders live. He ran a similar facility in Okeechobee County from 2000-2003, until local officials enforced zoning restrictions that drove him out.
The offenders share the 104-unit Pahokee complex with non-offenders, largely retired sugar workers. When Matthew 25 arrived in December several families with children moved out. The Palm Beach County Office of Equal Opportunity is investigating to determime whether the families were forced out, something Witherow denies.
Now Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office is saying the facility is too close to a baseball diamond and wants the offenders out. Witherow says the diamond hasn't been used in years. He calls it "more harrassment" of sex offenders who are trying to remake their lives.
The program for the offenders combines religious instruction with state mandated counseling, and lessons on substance abuse, finance and anger management.
Witherow says since 2000 he has counseled somewhere near 100 sex offenders and not one of them has been arrested again for a sexual offense.
"The real danger for parents isn't these sexual offenders," he says. "It is that your own child will be turned into a sex offender by what he's finding on a computer right in your home."
Book disagrees strongly with Witherow and stands by the buffer zones, although recent events in Miami-Dade have made him rethink the size of those zones.
Apart from being a lobbyist, Book is chairman of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust. The expanded zones have left dozens of men unable to find a legal residence and they live under a bridge in Biscayne Bay.
Book, who championed the zones, is now, ironically, having to help the men find places to live. Last week he placed at least eight of them in a rental complex. He says he now believes that slightly smaller buffer zones would open housing - 1,750 to 2,250 feet, instead of 2,500 feet.
He also says that he supports a system that distinguishes between more serious offenders and others, and "a judicial review where some people can come off the list of offenders" and no longer be affected by the living restrictions.
Witherow, the former offender, approves.
"He's beginning to see," he says. "He's someone who trusted a nanny and he's been looking at every sex offender as if it was that nanny."
But Book and Witherow will probably never see eye to eye on the offenders. Witherow showers God's love on them. Not Book.
"I go under that bridge to see them," says Book. "I'm trying to see that they are not homeless, but that doesn't mean I have to like them." ..Source.. by JOHN LANTIGUA, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
July 31, 2009
FL- Causeway dwellers prefer to stay
7-31-2009 Florida:
The sex offenders who have lived under the Julia Tuttle Causeway for three years are now reluctant to leave despite their deplorable existence.
Three years ago, few cared about the ragtag outcasts living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway.
Now, two lawsuits and a groundswell of national media coverage later, potential housing options for the convicted sex offenders are being negotiated among state and local officials, with legal challenges poised to fly through the courts. Even Gov. Charlie Crist has pledged to do his part to find a resolution.
But there is just one snag no one seemed to see coming: The sex offenders themselves are reluctant to leave their ramshackle abodes, no matter how deplorable their isolated existence has become.
Ron Book -- chairman of Miami-Dade's Homeless Trust and a victim's right's advocate -- is nevertheless marching forward on a mission to relocate the very people he once pledged to ostracize.
He has up to 18 possible units ready for them to move into and more to investigate.
But the causeway community isn't budging, at least for now.
``I guess they're trying to move us out of here because they're worried about the lawsuit,'' said Rickie, 24, who gave only his first name because he did not want it widely known that he lives under the causeway.
``I'd rather stay here. This where they put me in the first place.''
Book cited two obstacles: Many don't want to move into far south Miami-Dade County, while others have bought into a rumor that they may benefit financially from legal challenges brought recently on their behalf.
Two officials from the state Department of Corrections visited the encampment Thursday afternoon to offer another list of possible housing sites, Book said. They also spoke with some of the residents.
``They [state officials] were interested in the rumor that some of them don't want to go because they think they are going to miss some kind of a payday,'' Book said.
He theorized they may believe they stand to win money from a lawsuit brought on behalf of two causeway dwellers against Miami-Dade County earlier this month.
But the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which brought the suit, said it seeks no monetary damages, so while the bridge dwellers won't benefit financially, they will benefit from changes in the residency ordinances if the lawsuit is successful.
``I don't want to depend on a lawsuit,'' said Troy Dumas, 32, who has been living in the camp for three months.
``I want to be with my family. No amount of money can take that away from me.''
The latest legal volley came Thursday, when Miami-Dade County filed a motion in Circuit Court that will move the case more swiftly through the courts. In the suit, the ACLU argues that the state law designating that sex offenders live more than 1,000 feet from where children congregate should supersede the county's ordinance, which prohibits sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of a school.
The 2,500-foot law, which has been expanded in other counties and cities to include playgrounds, parks, child-care centers and a myriad of other child-friendly places, has made it impossible for sex offenders to live anywhere, critics say. As a result, the sex offenders often go into hiding where no one can keep track of them.
Essentially, the county is asking the court to rule in the county's favor as a matter of law, based on the presumption that the facts presented in the ACLU's complaint are true.
No matter what the decision, the case will be appealed, said Randall Marshall, legal director of the ACLU. It would then go to the state Third District Court of Appeal.
Neither Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez nor Assistant County Attorney Thomas Logue were available for comment Thursday.
``We should win as a matter of law because the county's ordinance interferes with state law,'' Marshall said, adding that Gov. Crist's long-standing position that local jurisdictions should set their own boundaries ``is basically just wrong.''
The city of Miami, meanwhile, is suing the state, contending the Department of Corrections placed the sex offenders illegally under the bridge in violation of their 2,500-foot ordinance, which they say places them too close to a park. ..Source.. by JULIE BROWN
July 30, 2009
FL- Levenson Shares Expertise in Newsweek Article, Videos
7-30-2009 Florida:
Jill Levenson, associate professor and chair of human services in the College of Arts and Sciences at Lynn, often quoted for her expertise and views on sexual offender residency laws, adds Newsweek to her ever growing list of media hits. (A list of Levenson's Research)
A licensed clinical social worker who got her start 20 years ago as a child protection social worker, she is a nationally known expert on sexual violence and has become a respected authority on, among other things, laws aimed at protecting children while punishing, tracking and rehabilitating sex offenders.
The Newsweek article, and accompanying 2-part video, focuses its piece on a group of sexual offenders living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway as a result of the housing restrictions that have been imposed on them.
Fresh on the heels of her appointment as chair of a sexual offender task force created by Broward County Board of County Commissioners, Levenson was quoted and filmed by Newsweek for her expertise and experience on the subject and who says about the restrictions in the article: "there is no evidence that [they] protect children. In Iowa, for example, there was no reduction in the number of reported sex crimes after the restrictions took effect, she says.”
At the heart of the “other side” of the story is Ron Book of Plantation, Fla., who as a result of his own daughter’s abuse, became a champion of legislation to restrict sexual offenders, especially the local residency law. According to the Newsweek story, he began to reconsider his position and in an interview with a Newsweek reporter in June, he admitted, "I was wrong"--three times. A few days later he had dinner with Levenson.
“Five years ago, I thought of you as a predator sympathizer," he told her. "I didn't see the bigger picture." He concluded the evening by assuring her, "I will be part of the solution."
The issue is on newsstands now. Read the full Newsweek article and watch the videos on Newsweek's website. ..Source.. by Lynn UniversityFL- Strict rule actually hurts public safety
7-30-2009 Florida:
While no one wants a registered sex offender living nearby, they have to live somewhere. Where? The answer in Miami-Dade County is under a causeway.
It turns out the only place in the county where many sex offenders are able to find a place to reside and not run afoul of a highly restrictive residency ordinance is underneath the Julia Tuttle Causeway linking Miami to Miami Beach. Restrictions in Pinellas and elsewhere already are creating clusters of sex offender housing, and the extreme situation in Miami-Dade has even onetime advocates reconsidering their support of a tough residency restriction that is politically popular but practically unworkable.
Law enforcement officials say the best way to monitor sex offenders is by giving them a chance to live legally. Miami-Dade doesn't. In 2005 it passed a ban on sex offenders residing within 2,500 feet of places where children gather. That is far more restrictive than Florida law that sets those limits at 1,000 feet.
As a result, more than 70 resident sex offenders have ended up living in a shantytown under the causeway, frustrating efforts at tracking and intensive supervision. According to Walter McNeil, secretary of the Department of Corrections, there are "no other options for housing" for this population in the county.
This relegation makes it virtually impossible for local sex offenders to follow the conditions of their probation. For instance, the GPS monitors that some sexual offenders are required to wear have to be regularly recharged, but there are no electrical outlets under the causeway.
Politicians love to pass these sorts of housing distance buffer zones. It makes them look tough on criminals, particularly despised sex offenders. Tampa considered a similarly restrictive ordinance last year but didn't pass it after the city attorney told the City Council there would be unintended consequences that jeopardize public safety.
Sex offenders often don't leave the community when they can find no place to legally live. They become homeless or drift aimlessly, making public notification of their whereabouts effectively impossible. And by forcing sex offenders to live in squalor and removing them from the stability of their families, the likelihood increases that they will commit more crimes.
A suit filed earlier this month by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida says that Miami-Dade's residency restrictions interfere with the proper operation of Florida's statutory scheme to track and supervise sex offenders. Similar arguments have succeeded elsewhere, including a case involving 2,500-foot residency restrictions in Jacksonville.
Now even Ron Book, a lobbyist who led the fight for the residency restrictions in Miami-Dade after his daughter was victimized, tells Newsweek.com that the residency restriction should be reduced. As chair of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust, he is looking for alternative housing for those sexual predators living under the bridge, and he has asked Gov. Charlie Crist for help on a broader statewide solution.
A crisis in Miami-Dade could help produce a more reasonable approach throughout Florida to monitoring sexual predators, restricting their potential homes and protecting children. The most extreme efforts can produce unintended results, and forcing predators to live in groups under a bridge will not make communities safer. ..Source.. A Times Editorial
July 29, 2009
FL- Gov. Crist weighs in on sex offender laws
Mr Lip Service makes an appearance!
7-29-2009 Florida:
Gov. Charlie Crist, who has kept himself at arm's length in the thorny debate over sex offender residency laws, inched toward a compromise on Wednesday, saying he would help ``facilitate a solution.''
However, he reiterated his position that the state would not overrule local laws -- even if the residency boundaries vary greatly from one municipality to another.
The controversy stems from the legal and political wrangling over a group of sex offenders living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami-Dade. The squalid camp of 70-plus convicted molesters have few options because residency laws prohibit them from living within certain distances of where children play or go to school.
FORCED UNDERGROUND
Over the past few years, municipalities have passed a patchwork of inconsistent boundaries, and critics charge that the laws have forced sex offenders underground, making it harder for law enforcement to keep track of them.
Asked Wednesday if local government buffers have gone too far, Crist said: ``Not necessarily. It's up to local government to make those decisions, and I wouldn't want to impose my will on them. I think they're doing what they believe to be responsible in their localities, and I want to be respectful of that.''
His statement came after a Newsweek article spotlighted the camp, and Ron Book, chairman of Miami-Dade's Homeless Trust, railed at the governor for failing to help fix the problem. After meeting with the governor and his staff, he was clearly frustrated.
``I had to walk away. I was annoyed. They don't even have a clue of a solution,'' Book told Newsweek.
LESS ANNOYED
On Wednesday, Book was more conciliatory. He said he called the governor and apologized for his Newsweek comments. The governor, he said, had become more proactive on the issue in recent days.
His staff, Book said, ``Engaged in a dialogue with me as we explore what options there are . . . they recognize this as a problem; we don't have to point fingers.''
RELOCATING
Meanwhile, Book is moving forward with plans to relocate the Causeway dwellers.
He is ready to move eight of them to a private apartment building in South Miami-Dade -- but he said they aren't happy about moving so far south, even though some of them have transportation.
``I concede it doesn't have a lot of mass transit opportunities,'' Book said.
``But you got people with cars, give me a break.'' ..Source.. by JULIE KNIPE BROWN
